Midnight Jewel

  Later, as we lay together in stillness, he said in that dry way of his: “So. That’s what happens when we take a night off.”

  I didn’t know how to explain how I felt, that Jasper’s words and those empty beds had driven home how alone I was. That Lonzo was far away. Grant was all I had left, and the thought of losing him terrified me. But I would. One way or another, it was going to happen. He’d leave, I’d leave. I didn’t know. Because although we often talked about all sorts of other topics in bed, our future—if there even was one—never came up. Even the far-fetched idea of going north together had been voiced cautiously. And it had never been mentioned again.

  My face must have betrayed all the emotion churning inside me. I saw it startle him. I saw it scare him. He didn’t mind unbound passion in bed, but he was still skittish at the thought of anyone caring about him too much.

  I braced myself, ready for him to close himself off or even get up. Instead, he ran his fingers through the long strands of my hair and asked, “Why me?” It almost sounded like one of those world-weary “Why me?” exclamations people make when they’re burdened with woes. “Maybe you didn’t know any better the first time. Maybe not even the second, but you should by now. You could have your pick of other men. Nicer men. Less complicated men.”

  He spoke as he often did: light and flippant. But the hand that touched me trembled. I reached out and put my own over it as I studied him. Flyaway black hair. Scars. Square jaw. Questionable shaving. I thought about his brusqueness and biting humor. His courage in the face of danger. The loyalty he swore he didn’t have.

  “Because I wanted something simple. Instead I got you.” I tightened my hold on his hand. “And it turns out, that was what I needed.”

  He shook his head. I could sense his guard coming up, but I didn’t regret my words. “Mirabel—”

  A rap at the door caused him to jerk away. He leapt off the bed and managed to tug on his pants as he hurried toward the other room. “Stay here,” he warned. He shut the bedroom door, but it didn’t catch. I scrambled out of bed and pulled on my chemise, peering out through the small gap between door and wall. Grant picked up his gun and went to the front door, asking who was there. He’d grown even more cautious since we’d become lovers. I think he expected Jasper or Cornelius to show up one day.

  I didn’t hear the answer on the other side of the door, but he opened it and Aiana hurried in. She immediately began speaking in Balanquan, and a tense conversation ensued. I couldn’t understand it—their language was still a puzzle to me—but two words came through very clearly: Adelaide and Cedric.

  I pushed open the bedroom door and rushed forward. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  Aiana stopped mid-sentence. She looked at Grant, she looked at me, and then she looked back at him. Her face darkened, and she barked something to him that didn’t sound complimentary. He answered back, and I interrupted before she could respond.

  “Enough! Fight later. Tell me what’s happened to Adelaide and Cedric. And speak Osfridian.”

  Aiana kept her eyes on Grant for several more seconds and then slowly turned to me. She spoke stiffly at first and then fell into the urgency of her story. “Something happened in Hadisen. Silas is back—and he brought Warren Doyle and some of his men. They’re being held at the jail, and Cedric will join them once he’s well enough to travel. Silas found them in the middle of a fight and took everyone into custody. Cedric and Warren each claim they were attacked by the other.”

  “Why wouldn’t Cedric be well enough to travel?” I demanded.

  “They don’t know who started the fight, but they know who finished it. Cedric was outnumbered and took a beating, but he’ll be okay. And Adelaide’s fine . . . but . . .”

  “But what? More than this?” I exclaimed. I wanted to go demand a boat take me over the bay right now.

  “Did you know . . .” Aiana considered her words carefully. “Did you know about Adelaide’s background?”

  “She was a maid for some grand lady.”

  “Well, they’re saying, she is—or was—the grand lady. A noble. Does the name Witmore or Rothford mean anything to you?”

  “The Rothford earldom is one of the oldest, and it’s held by the Witmore family,” I said, reciting my history instructor’s words. “But there’s absolutely no way—” I groaned and walked away, putting a hand to my forehead. I was an idiot. “Of course. Of course she is.” Adelaide had come to us knowing how to use seven different forks, but she hadn’t been able to brush her own hair. The amazing turnaround in her grades hadn’t been a turnaround at all. She’d been faking until then.

  Grant leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. “Well, I didn’t see that coming, but does it change anything?”

  “It has people’s attention. I guess we’ll see what that’s worth when she gets back with Cedric. Silas expects them to come by water in a couple of days. I’m surprised he hasn’t stopped by yet.” Aiana glanced around, as though she expected Silas to materialize out of thin air. “You’d better watch out—he’s not going to take all of this as well as I did.”

  “Really? That was taking it well?” asked Grant. “I’d hate to see when you don’t. I didn’t even hear a manasta when you came in.”

  I rested against the wall too, close to Grant but not touching. “Warren’s up to something. First Tamsin and then . . .” I lost track of what I’d been about to say. My mind had jumped somewhere else, clutching at a fragile thread. “Manasta.”

  “Manasta,” Grant and Aiana both repeated at the same time, correcting my pronunciation.

  I went to the bedroom and returned with a Lorandian version of the letter. Grant and I didn’t read poetry in bed, but sometimes we tried to puzzle this code. “Manasta means ‘greetings,’ right?” I pointed at the letter’s first line. “Ma nahz taback. Do you hear it? Manasta is in there. Wouldn’t you open a letter that way? I mean, it’s not a perfect match. The back syllable is still there, and—”

  “What’s the next word after that?” interrupted Grant.

  “Dapine. It means ‘rabbit.’”

  “Forget the meaning,” he said. “Read those words again. Use your best Lorandian pronunciation.”

  “Ma nahz taback dapine.”

  “Bakda,” said Aiana. She looked at Grant. “Or bakda?” There was a very slight shift in her tone the second time.

  “Bakda,” he said, with a third tone. “Manasta, bakda.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “‘Greetings, friend.’” He had that light in his eyes, the one that said he was about to go on the hunt again. “Mirabel, you’ve broken the code.”

  CHAPTER 30

  TRANSLATING THE LETTER WAS PAINSTAKING WORK. Grant and Aiana had to sit apart from me and listen as I read, focusing strictly on the sounds and how they could be strung together into Balanquan words. Equally complicated was that there was no word-for-word substitution. One Lorandian word might contain all the sounds for two Balanquan words. Or maybe one Lorandian word contained half a Balanquan word that was continued in the next Lorandian word. On top of it all, we had to take the Balanquan tonal and stress differences into account. So, even when Grant and Aiana were certain they’d parsed a Balanquan word, they had to puzzle out which meaning it had.

  We were bleary-eyed by the time we finished, and even then, the letter still had holes we couldn’t decipher. People’s names had been swapped with numbers, and Grant said the traitors probably had a key that listed them all. The writer also hadn’t focused much on grammar or style, so I tried my best to clean it up and add punctuation.

  Greetings, friend. We have had occasional detection. 17 is replacing lost goods and still sending gold. He will supervise usual transfer so that you can deliver to green mountain.

  How long until your _____ sees more gold? We need additional supplies and _____ start soldier payroll. I
mportant to stay on schedule. First attack must be autumn. 34 is creating final schedule and will send out with _____ seekers on healing night. Send your gold to bay land if you can. If _____ then we will come to you in gold land.

  Send response by 17.

  I slumped back against the wall and yawned. The three of us sat on the floor, all worn out after the long hours. Well, Grant didn’t seem worn out. He burned with restless energy and leaned forward to study the translation sitting between us.

  “An autumn attack,” he mused. “If they can act that soon, then they’ve got more in place than we realized. Or at least, they think they will by then. It sounds like they’re scrambling. Autumn’s a smart time. The land is still passable, but sea travel will shut down and limit Osfridian help. Discovering that part of the plan is huge. Osfrid can start sending backup now. I’d love to get my hands on whatever thirty-four’s schedule is—we need to figure out who those seekers are. And I’ll bet you anything that ‘bay land’ is Denham, which would probably mean ‘gold land’ is Hadisen. Whoever this was meant for is sending money—”

  “Iyitsi, enough.” Aiana rubbed at her eyes. “You’ve got your translation. Stay up all night with it if you want, but we need to get back to Wisteria Hollow.”

  “Wait just a little longer.” Grant’s eyes stayed fixed on the letter. “This needs to go to Silas right now. It’s already two weeks old. Come with me in case he has any questions, then you can leave.”

  Aiana nudged me. “Can you hang in there a little longer, Banle?”

  I answered with a nod and a yawn, and Grant finally glanced up. “Banle? Really?”

  “No worse than Sekem,” she shot back. “But maybe not a good match anymore. The fledgling’s already left the nest, apparently.”

  Grant pointedly looked back down at the letter.

  Silas took a long time to answer the door, and I understood why when I saw him. Exhaustion had etched new lines in his face, and his glazed eyes didn’t seem to recognize us at first. He’d been traveling all day, and even the water route between here and Hadisen was taxing. But after a few blinks, his gaze grew sharper, and the familiar shrewdness appeared.

  “It can’t be good if all three of you are here in the middle of the night,” he grumbled.

  “It is good, actually.” Grant strolled in without invitation and beckoned for Aiana and me to follow. He laid the papers out on the desk and explained about our breakthrough. Silas was fully awake now and rewarded me with one of those raised-eyebrow glances when he heard about my role.

  “We need these,” he said, tapping the blanks. “That schedule could change everything. And I’d like to know where that green mountain is.”

  Aiana leaned closer. “I think we got entwa wrong. It’s entwa. Bend, not mountain.” As usual, the two Balanquan pronunciations sounded identical to my ear.

  Grant scrutinized the words and nodded. “You’re right. It’s a city. Green Bend.”

  “Up in Alma,” said Silas. “We’ve had our eye on someone there for a while, and he may be the one inventorying all the supplies as they come in. I’ve got a man there right now I can get to check on it.”

  I was studying the line about the schedule that both Silas and Grant found so critical. 34 is creating final schedule and will send out with _____ seekers on healing night.

  The words Aiana and Grant had brainstormed to the corresponding Lorandian sounds were written by the blank: disbelief, serpent, hazy, and wet. I went through them as I had before, placing them in context.

  “What’s the Balanquan word for ‘heretic’?” I asked.

  “There isn’t one,” said Grant.

  “We don’t even have the concept,” added Aiana. “No one should dictate another person’s worship.”

  “Then, for this code, they’d have to substitute something—like the way they use ‘bay land’ for Denham.” My certainty grew. “Could ‘disbelief seekers’ be a way to say ‘heretic patrol’ then? Heretic hunters? You said you ride all over.”

  “Yes,” said Grant. I could almost see his thoughts spinning faster and faster as he stared at the words. “And we sometimes deliver messages. There were a few people the patrol checked in with regularly when we made our rounds—people I suspected were more than citizens concerned with corrupt religions. If I had anything else to go on, where this person was, when the patrol will be there . . .”

  “Assuming they haven’t already come and gone,” muttered Silas. “You better pray all your work wasn’t wasted.”

  “Pray.” I tried to remember the date. My days were running together lately. “Tomorrow night. It’s Ramiel’s Day. That’s the healing night they’re talking about.”

  Grant frowned. “I thought Ramiel was the angel of peace and mercy.”

  “Healing’s rolled into that. She’s the patron of doctors too.” Silas swung around so he could meet Grant face to face. “Tell me you know where the patrol’s going to be then. Tell me.”

  “Bakerston.” Grant clenched and unclenched one of his fists, as though he was already grasping the case’s conclusion. “I’m not on duty, but I know who the patrol’s contact is up there. I know who thirty-four has to be.”

  Silas let out a grateful sigh having a burden lifted and then immediately straightened up. “Then you’d better make damn sure you see that message before they carry it off.”

  “I’ll go now,” said Grant.

  “Morning,” corrected Silas. “Get a few hours of sleep. I want you sharp. You’ll need to search his house for anything else. Might be better to wait until after you copy that mystery schedule. Lay low until everyone’s asleep.”

  “I know, I know. I can handle this.”

  “Don’t get overconfident. You may be younger and a little faster, but I’ve done this longer. Be smart. Don’t be impulsive. If you lose your cover, you lose the rest.”

  “I know.” Grant speculatively ran his fingertips over the letter. “Warren Doyle started the patrols. If they’re being used as couriers for the conspiracy, it seems like there’s a good chance he might be part of it. And the letter mentions Hadisen.”

  Silas’s face twisted into a scowl. “I thought about that. Hadisen turns out a lot of gold, too. Sir Ronald was certain their big financer was a Lorandian noble, but we’re going to have to look into Doyle now.”

  Warren Doyle, a conspirator. It certainly fit with the villainous image of him I was building.

  “Don’t go the usual way to Bakerston,” Silas added, rummaging through his papers. “You can’t risk crossing paths with the patrol if they head up early. This road here . . .”

  He took out a map, and Aiana tugged at my arm. “Now I’m taking her home. She’s proved her worth. She deserves some sleep.”

  Silas lifted his head from the map and fixed me with a piercing look. “You’ve more than proved your worth, Miss Viana. And you’ve also proven—again—that I was a fool for wanting to get rid of you.”

  “Uh, thank you.” Compliments from Silas threw me off almost as much as Grant’s.

  Aiana was already at the door. “Good luck, Iyitsi.”

  I followed reluctantly, needing to say more to Grant but knowing I couldn’t. And even if others hadn’t been around, he wouldn’t have given me an emotional, heartfelt farewell anyway. It wasn’t his way.

  Aiana walked outside, but I stopped in the doorway to look back at Grant. Despite his and Silas’s brusque attitudes, I knew how dangerous this was. Grant was penetrating the heart of the conspiracy. “Be careful,” I told him. “I—we want you to come back.”

  Silas snorted and stalked off into his bedroom, apparently searching for something. “Don’t worry. I’ll still make sure you get your reward even if he doesn’t.”

  “Glad to know you’ll be so torn up about it,” Grant called. Turning to me, he pitched his voice low. “I’ll be back. No need to find some other man’s
bed yet.”

  “You think I’m that kind of woman?”

  “I think someone as brave and beautiful as you could find other company if she wanted to. Oh, and brilliant too. You were brilliant tonight.”

  The earnestness in his voice took me aback almost as much as the words themselves. I grasped for a witty response but ended up blurting out: “I don’t want you back for your bed. I want you back . . . for you. It’s just that simple.”

  Grant faltered a moment, as discomfited as I’d been. “This has never been simple.”

  “Mira!”

  Aiana sounded impatient, and Silas was returning from the bedroom. I gave Grant one last look of farewell and then scurried off after her.

  We didn’t speak much as we walked back. The brief high of the discovery at Silas’s faded, and the effects of so little sleep slammed into me. It took a lot of effort just to put one foot in front of the other. Still, I managed to tentatively ask, “Are you . . . mad? About . . . you know.”

  “Mad? No. Not exactly. Worried for both of you. And surprised. You never seemed interested in anything like that.”

  “I’m interested in it with him.” As soon as I said those words, I felt my face heat up and was grateful for the darkness. “And it’s . . . I mean . . . it’s better than I thought it would be. A lot better. It’s also easier than I expected. Well, in bed, at least. Outside of it, things are more . . . complicated.”

  She laughed loudly at that. “That’s the way it always is. And I imagine it’s doubly true with Iyitsi. You probably never know which face is going to show up.”

  Her words hit harder than she realized, and I thought back to the moments before she’d arrived. “What did you say to him when you walked in?”

  “Oh, I called him a few names. Maybe more than a few.” The mirth vanished. “And I told him he was leading you into things you aren’t ready for.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “That you were doing the same to him.”